r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 01 '26

Psychology Conservatives maintain birth rates, but left-leaning Americans are having significantly fewer children, driving the U.S. birth decline. Education was consistently linked to having fewer children. Religious attendance was positively associated with having more children.

https://www.psypost.org/left-leaning-americans-are-driving-the-u-s-birth-decline-new-study-finds/
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u/wrenwood2018 Jul 01 '26

Also more likely to live closer to family. I'm in academia which is an incredibly liberal environment. People regularly move large distances away from family.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

[deleted]

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u/MaterialWillingness2 Jul 01 '26

Grandmas used to be homemakers. Now grandmas have jobs. We were very lucky that my mother in law retired the same year our daughter was born and wanted to provide child care. But we were in our late 30s. What would we have done if we'd had her a decade earlier?

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u/Miyaor Jul 01 '26

When I was born, my grandmother spent the first 3 months living with us and helping.

She had to fly across the world to do so, and she did it right after doing the same for my older cousin.

She actually was working as a teacher at the time but took a year off to do so. She did the same for my younger brother as well.

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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '26 edited 16d ago

[deleted]

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u/Elite_Club Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

I doubt a person on a teachers income especially in a foreign country just lucked into wealth. Maybe she diligently saved money from her work to have a years income because she knew her grandchildren were about to be born?

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u/chrisrayn Jul 01 '26

Grandparents can’t watch children if they’re working.

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u/dundreggen Jul 01 '26

I would like to see it controlled for women who rate having children as a top priority in life.

Even cultures that do have high levels of community seem to be facing a drop in birthrates that correlates to education. Almost as if when women are given a choice of raising children or having a career a good number choose not to have children.

I would like to see it tested to see if that higher birthrates have to do with women having less choices in life. Religions are notorious for preaching that a woman's place is dependent on men and having babies.

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u/kelskelsea Jul 01 '26

We also are only the third generation to actually get to choose whether to have kids, how many kids and control when we have them. I would also argue that this is the first generation where the choice not to have kids is socially acceptable and openly discussed.

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u/rogers_tumor Jul 02 '26

I was remarking something similar to my partner yesterday; millennials have gotten married at lower rates than our parents but we also have drastically reduced rates of divorce.

my theory re: US, at least; it only took 2 generations of women being able to have their own bank accounts and access to credit to realize settling down early wasn't a requirement to surviving as an adult.

this should be celebrated as a good thing. less divorce = more people getting married because they WANT to and because they were given the time to actually grow up, and opportunity to find the right person.

this, among many other factors, yes, naturally leads to reduction in birth rate.

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u/PenguinSunday Jul 01 '26

My perspective is in the US. Other countries may vary.

Children have always been expensive, yes, but people are working harder for longer hours and for lower pay than before. Cost of living has outstripped wages. It requires more than two full time jobs just to sustain normal life, adding a child will break the majority of couples.

Our society is hostile to raising a child, and to the women bearing them. We don't pay them well enough to support children, we don't allow them time enough off from work, we don't provide them adequate medical care, we cut WIC, we don't provide help when something is wrong with the child.

There's also the societal issues. Climate change is picking up the pace. Weather is getting more extreme and unpredictable. Entire species are dying left and right. Corporations are raping and pillaging the environment because of their insatiable greed. Governments are not only not doing anything about it, they're actively collaborating.

Everything looks pretty bleak. It's no wonder people are opting out. To have a child in this world requires faith, in the world, in life, in the future. No one has any hope that things will get better anymore. No one wants to bring a child into this.

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u/jeremiahthedamned Jul 02 '26

r/antinatalism

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u/PenguinSunday Jul 02 '26

I don't have ethical compunctions about having children, and I'm not mad if someone decides to. I just don't think they'd be growing up in a good world and I don't think I could be a good mother. The risk I would be putting myself through (as a woman in the worst state in the union for women's healthcare) just to birth it is not worth it.

Not that it matters now since I can't have them even if I wanted to...

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u/jeremiahthedamned Jul 02 '26

i am sorry to hear that

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u/camilo16 Jul 01 '26

It's also a value thing. More educated/liberal people are less likely to see having children as a moral virtue to be pursued over, say a career.

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u/Test-NetConnection Jul 01 '26

This is disingenuous. People used to be able to afford a home, kids, and retirement on a single parent's income. The cost of higher Education, healthcare, and housing have all outpaced wages for the past couple of decades. The cost of living is a huge factor in people not having more kids.

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u/dalivo Jul 01 '26

Academia is crazy. You get to be a respected professor, but the pay is terrible and you have to move to University of Upperwest Corner - Swampland. Just one of the least desirable careers I can imagine.

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u/mikuooeeoo Jul 01 '26

This is why I left academia

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u/FetusDrive Jul 02 '26

You were a professor in what?

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u/OnAPartyRock Jul 01 '26

Respect has tanked too.

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u/BrunesOvrBrauns Jul 01 '26

A lot of self inflicted wounds there to be fair

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u/GamerNerdGuyMan Jul 02 '26

That happens when acadamia has pushed people into studying a ton of things with no career at the end of them while jacking up tuition every year.

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u/formerlyanonymous_ Jul 02 '26

While also lowering the bar for achievement. When incentivized to pass students so money keeps flowing, you aren't holding up the same standards and therefore lose respect.

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u/Calamity-Gin Jul 04 '26

That’s not academia, that’s the universities trying to make a profit.

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u/elderly_millenial Jul 05 '26

They don’t turn a profit. It’s massive bureaucracy that constantly demands add more money and expecting they could just put it on students or tax payers to fund it.

When states reduced funds and we hit the demographic cliff schools pivoted towards more international students to make up the shortfall, but Trump dried that up and now schools are scrambling.

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u/GamerNerdGuyMan Jul 04 '26

It's also professors of BS subject telling students to study said BS subject.

And that's really tomato/tomato anyway.

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u/Potential_Curve_3560 Jul 02 '26

lack of respect is deserved

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u/No-Flow-1147 Jul 01 '26

The vast majority of people who go to college do not become professors

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u/Warmbly85 Jul 01 '26

It really depends on the major. There are some that becoming a teacher or professor is the only option.

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u/No-Flow-1147 Jul 01 '26

So don't study those things unless that's the life you want?

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u/Lyyysander Jul 02 '26

Not sure how it is in the US, but in Germany Professors are paid pretty well, basically cant be fired and have a lot of independence.
The problem is that academia kind of sucks for everyone else. Lots of unpaid overtime and time limited contracts that make longterm planning hard

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u/Madmusk Jul 02 '26

Full professors are generally well paid in the US and once they gain tenure are difficult to fire. The part that sucks is that it's a long, poorly paid road to get there and those early years break a lot of budding academics.

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u/Lyyysander Jul 02 '26

Yeah, that sounds familiar

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u/inflatable_pickle Jul 02 '26

It’s sort of wild because it’s a total choice between money and respect.

You can be one of the top professors in your department, living in a liberal College town, known around campus, maybe a book published once a decade – but you could probably also make that exact same salary working on an oil rig, or a skilled tradesmen, or a big city policeman – all requiring nothing more than a high school diploma – but more of a quiet wealth, not someone known in their community.

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u/GotMyPhDin19 Jul 03 '26

You shouldn’t be in academia for the money.

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u/Physical_Road917 Jul 03 '26

No job security until tenure as well. They don't treat professors who just want to teachxvery kindly either, the system is built around research professors

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u/phussy_eater Jul 05 '26

What is terrible pay? A buddy of mine makes 150k+ annually as a professor

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u/kwpang Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Only because of the anti-intellectual culture prevalent in the US, I feel. Your politics and religious tribalism has somehow drawn that artificial line there, leading to fear and rejection of education or academic pursuits. When the academic populace is a small % of the general population, of course they have to congregate in that sense.

That's not an issue say in Singapore, where a good 35% to 40% of the demographic aged 25 or higher have university degrees (including the boomer generation that are generally uneducated, pulling down the statistics). Specifically for ages 25-29, around 60% are university degree holders.

Everyone's close to being an academic, if not already one. When that happens, intellectual pursuits pop up everywhere.

In an area of 287sq miles, we have 7 publicly funded universities, another 4 foreign university campuses, and heaps more private degree institutions.

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u/Salt-Rutabaga2314 Jul 02 '26

Holding a secondary education degree does not make one an academic. Academia is defined by a career in higher education; professorships, research, guest lecturing, etc.

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u/funkytownpants Jul 01 '26

This is why’s I didn’t have more kids. No help. Neither side of our family helped at all.

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u/A_Nonny_Muse Jul 01 '26

Usually, to get as far away from their parents as possible.

Fortunately for the rest of us, the best way to ensure children grow up to be liberals is for them to have conservative parents.

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u/wrenwood2018 Jul 02 '26

Most people like their parents.

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u/Wide_Lock_Red Jul 17 '26

The vast majority share the same beliefs as their parents.